Libertarian thinking about everything.
--Ere he shall lose an eye for such a trifle... For doing deeds of nature! I'm ashamed. The law is such an ass. -- G. Chapman, 1654.

Jan 2, 2011

Death of a City

You know all you need to know about Texas -- that big braggart of a state where everyone goes around armed with a handgun, threatening peaceable citizens, and shooting up the town every boozy Saturday night.

And you know all about Mexico, that gentle southern neighbor where disarmed peasants go humbly around, doffing their sombreros to the damas, smiling "manana, senor," and donating their pitifully few small pieces of silver for a new bell for Santa Maria's Cathedral.

Ahem. It isn't the guns. It is the politicians.

Massacres, beheadings, YouTube videos featuring cartel torture sessions and even car bombs are becoming commonplace in Juarez, where more than 3,000 people were killed in 2010, according to the federal government, making it among the most dangerous places on earth.

The piece concentrates on citizens' flight from a city I once loved. It's the drug violence, of course, but the most frightening and revealing passage is about the federales' effort to figure out just how many Juarez people have fled.

Now, the Mexican army and federal authorities are going door-to-door, conducting an emergency census to determine just how many residents have fled.

Many people, however, refuse to answer their questions for fear authorities are simply collecting information about neighborhoods so they can begin extorting residents — just like the drug gangs.

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Mexico is a failed country because it has been corruptly governed since September 16, 1810, and because its people have no tradition of standing tall and telling its dictators du jour to go the Hell. And because of the "war on drugs" -- lost the instant it was declared. When unworkable and unenforceable laws create a market so skewed that drugs easily command 100 times their pharmaceutical costs, the war lords are in control. No level of horribly expensive DEA macho can alter that.

Corruptly governed only since independence? I think you may need to look into the Spanish government that preceded that. And the Aztecs that preceded the Spanish... AFAIK, Mexico has been misgoverned since government was invented.

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One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent. -- H.L. Mencken

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...the Constitution was made to guard thepeople against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." Daniel Webster

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EMAIL --alongfordmick(at)yahoo(dot)com

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Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty – and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies."– H.L. Mencken,